Date:         Tue, 13 May 2008 09:06:23 -0600
Reply-To:     Alan Churchill <savian001@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Alan Churchill <savian001@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: Any remaining reasons to export to XPT?
Comments: To: "Keintz, H. Mark" <mkeintz@WHARTON.UPENN.EDU>
In-Reply-To:  <0F48071CAE88E940892B3883297EE84709113750@RITTENHOUSE.wharton.upenn.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

Mark,

I never use xpt files but there is not a lot of choice for SAS datasets to
be exported/imported from if we look at the following as criteria:

1. Have embedded metadata
2. Do not require a SAS Access license

I personally would use XML but that is still limited until 9.2 becomes more
widely available. XML is definitely a good replacement long term, especially
with gzipped XML.

Alan

Alan Churchill
Savian
www.savian.net

-----Original Message-----
From: SAS(r) Discussion [mailto:SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Keintz,
H. Mark
Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 8:31 AM
To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Any remaining reasons to export to XPT?

Dear SAS-L folks.

Is there any reason that you would suggest a user "proc export" SAS data
to XPT format, given the wide array of alternative export formats and
SAS data engines?

I used to recommend XPT to make it easy for Stata users (the Stata
FDAUSE statement reads XPT files), accepting the downside that XPT would
not support long variable names (over 8 characters). But since SAS 9.1
can directly create Stata datasets, this is no longer an advantage.

Since (I believe) PROC CPORT/CIMPORT goes back to SAS version 6, I am
unaware of any notable contexts in which I would export SAS data to the
XPT format.


Regards,
Mark